Saturday, December 15, 2012

I've been remarkably consistent in my views on guns over the past few decades. Essentially, it has boiled down to the following statement, which I had posted in more places than I can count:
I support your right to own a gun. Any gun.
The Constitutional fact that Americans have the right to be armed aside, I fundamentally believe (as a liberal) that you have the right to read, download, drink, smoke, have sexual activity or whatever as you please as long as you are not harming someone else by it, and therefore also to buy what you please (and if it is a gun, then buy it.) In fact, until recently the debate on guns has been moving further and further to the right, where without changing a single position, I had gone from guns being one issue where I generally agreed with the right (when the debate was about registration and limitations on ownership) to where I was more likely to agree with the left (when the debate had moved past that to trying to force guns into more and more places like public buildings and private businesses over the objections of the business owners.) I summarized this several months ago in this post: The Debate on Guns has been Changing.
Recently though, in light of a spate of deranged gunmen killing large numbers of people, the debate has been moving back the other way. And in theory that would move me back to where I had been focused, against any new restrictions. To restrict individual rights, I believe in a high bar.
That bar has been reached. The slaughter of first grade children at an elementary school yesterday has been the point at which I have to reluctantly agree that the harm to society caused by allowing the ownership of a particular category of weapons-- assault weapons with clips capable of firing large numbers of rounds before reloading, and in rapid succession-- outweighs any good reason one could have for owning one.
And the fact is, this weekend was only a third as bloody as it could have been. In the past 48 hours you didn't read about another school shooting in Bartlesville, Oklahoma because of a brave student informant and an alert school administration, nor about a massacre in a hospital in Alabama this morning because of two alert hospital staff and two police officers, three of whom were wounded but who stopped the gunman before he could shoot anyone else.
Let's consider the arguments against restricting large capacity clips one at a time.If everyone was armed, then they could take out the shooter before he kills more than a few people. This argument presupposes that people are armed every time they go out in public (because you don't expect someone to walk into your classroom or into a movie theater or into your place of worship and begin blazing away.) Besides, people always assume that if they were armed they would win a shootout against a random gunman. But would they? Yes, they might (repeat might) have the element of surprise, but that would only last for a moment. Keep in mind that these shooters have lately been wearing full body armor, and are likely armed with a much nastier weapon than what most people have for self defense. So unless you could get an exact head shot with a pistol (difficult even for a practiced police officer) just having a gun for self-defense might not be adequate. Further, the random shooter would have the advantage that most people might be deterred if, for example, there were people between them and the shooter or behind the shooter, for obvious reasons. But a deranged gunman wouldn't even care about that. SO IT IS VERY POSSIBLE, that the result of an armed citizen during a random shooting would instead of stopping the gunman, only provide him with another weapon and some more ammunition.
Further, if everyone was armed, then that would indeed mean everyone. Including people with a short temper. If we consider that scores of people are killed in arguments (especially domestic violence situations) for every person killed by a random shooter, we can see that having everyone armed would probably not be such a great idea after all.So-called 'gun free zones' aren't. It is certainly true that if someone wants to walk past a sign advising them they can't have a weapon on the premises while armed to the teeth, the sign won't reach out and slap them. However, the truth is that weapon-free zones do work, in preventing law-abiding people who get angry while there from using a firearm. Many years ago, while I was teaching a college class in Albuquerque, an angry young man blew up in class, threw a pencil (hard) at another student (luckily she ducked and it missed,) screamed obscenities at everyone in the class and stormed out of the room. Luckily he did not have a gun at that moment, because if he did I would not be a bit surprised if he had used it. For that matter, Jared Lougher, the Tucson shooter, is by now well-documented in the problems he had in classes at Pima Community College. However, every time he lost his temper on campus, he was at that moment unarmed. In other words, he was complying with the 'gun free zone' rule when he came on campus. Nobody plans or expects to lose their temper. But, the fact is that many people do. Gun free zones may not do anything to stop someone who carefully and methodically plans to go on a rampage, but they do stop the much more common hothead who follows the rules until he (or she) loses control. There are too many assualt weapons out there already for a ban to do any good. In the short term, this is probably true. And I'm not advocating that the government go around and pick up guns that people bought in good faith, believing that they should be legal. However, over time the supply of clips for such weapons (i.e. 30 round rapid fire clips) would diminish. I also don't support the registration of guns (because fundamentally it is still not the government's business how many guns you own or what kinds.) But limiting what new kinds of weapons one can purchase is not a restriction on anybody's freedom (after all, we all agree that you can't own a howitzer and keep it at your house) and starts to work the problems out of the system.Why should we prevent responsible people from owning weapons when the vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens who would never think of killing someone else? Again, the right to own a weapon is on very firm Constitutional ground. However, what would the vast majority of American gun owners need a 30 round, rapid fire clip for? If you are that bad of a shot that you need 30 rounds then maybe you need to improve your aim. The point is, that the potential harm from a few people outweighs the desire of people to have a weapon which is frankly not useful for hunting and was invented for only one reason-- military style weapons which are useful for killing a lot of people at one time. The United States was borne out of opposition to tyranny, and having military-style weapons helps prevent its return. Yeah, I know. That argument is out there. And I concede that our government has gone way past where I feel comfortable in terms of spying on us and restricting our rights. And in fact, I've made exactly that point. However, it's hard to see how having assault weapons on the streets answers this. For one thing, rights disappear a little at a time, and often when the folks out there complaining about 'tyranny' aren't even looking (for example, did any individual rights disappear between the end of the Clinton administration and the start of the Obama administration? Of course they did. So how come the militia 'movement' went into hibernation for eight years and said hardly a word, even though rights that get taken away remain for all future administrations to use and abuse? The truth is, that assault weapons would only be useful if tyranny was imposed all at once and provoked an actual civil war (some folks do in fact predict a full out war against the Federal Government.) But in that case, it's hard to see how a Glock 19 would come in very useful against a Predator Drone anyway. In other words, let's not go there. What they have done though is allow criminals to outgun the police. And the police after losing officers all over the country, have spoken out against them.
So what about the NRA? Don't they hold Congress in an iron grip and make sure anybody who challenges them on guns will face a well-funded and well-organized challenge the next time they run? No, not anymore, or at least not any more than they will anyway. For one thing, the NRA held their endorsed candidates liable for a budget bill last year, an investigation of Eric Holder, and several other bills that had nothing to do with gun rights. For another, the NRA did spend heavily to defeat propositions that were on the ballot in several states and those propositions passed anyway. Finally, in the wake of Citizens United, in which both sides and their allies were well into the billions of dollars in spending this election, the NRA is just another Washington funding source, but not the largest, or even close to it. Citizens United has in effect defanged the NRA because no matter how much it can raise from its members, it's now competing with billionaires who can write a check in a moment that can match its fundraising for a year. That's not to say the NRA isn't still important (for one thing it is still a bulwark, or will be if it gets back to focusing exclusively on gun issues) against those who actually do want to get rid of all guns, as well as the good work it does in terms of pushing training in the proper use and storage of weapons (because it is still true that far more people, and especially far more children, die from gun accidents than from someone intentionally shooting them.)

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

About a week ago I attended a Republican debate in Springerville. I have blogged about the Congressional District One race before, but I decided I would go see for myself what the GOP is sending us for candidates this year.
All four of the GOP candidates for the office were present, Patrick Gatti, Gaither Martin, Jonathan Paton and Doug Wade. The GOP establishment has annointed Paton, and given their track record in choosing candidates whether local Republicans want them or not (think Rick Renzi, who jumped into the district from outside and spent big outside money to defeat Louis Tenney in a primary in 2002, or Paul Gosar, who did live in the district but who also got a lot of outside money to beat several other candidates two years ago before abandoning the district this year) I suspect Paton will be their nominee. Like Renzi, he jumped into the district just to run; also like Renzi, he is bringing a lot of outside money into the district; and also like Renzi he is ethically challenged (as I discussed in this post about a month ago.)
So what kind of a GOP nominee is he? Well, he sounded very much like a career politician (a good reason for that, because he is a career politician) in most of his answers, consistently ducking and weaving while avoiding providing a lot of direct answers unless the question was a softball (i.e. "did you vote in the last election?") However, he had a couple of answers I would like to talk about right now.
I had one chance to ask a question, so I decided to ask it about the Paul Ryan budget, which Paton is on record (both in 2010 and 2012 as supporting.) The Ryan budget proposes phasing out Medicare for workers below 55 and replacing it with a series of exchanges where seniors could purchase subsidized private insurance. Of course this is exactly what is at the heart of Obamacare, but according to Republican logic, Obamacare is better than Medicare for seniors, but nothing at all would be better for the rest of us than Obamacare. So, I mentioned my age (presently 49) and the fact that I have paid Medicare taxes since I had my first job at the age of sixteen (a third of a century ago) and asked about how he felt about the Ryan budget's plan to privatize Medicare. He of course hemmed and hawed a great deal, going back and forth and finally saying it would be 'wrong' to "deny coverage to people that have been paying their entire lifetime into anything." Which was a classic dodge-- the Ryan plan does not seek to deny coverage, it seeks to change it to a privatized system. He then went on to discuss Social Security (which I had not even mentioned in my original question) and said, "I don’t believe I’m ever gonna see a dime of the money that I’ve put into Social Security, and I think most young people believe that today. We should be able to do with our own money what we want to. And I think that’s the right way to go." In other words, keep your money and invest it yourself. Which is to say, no Social Security. Exactly the same thing the Bush people were saying when they tried to privatize Social Security in 2005. Their arguments may be evolving, but make no mistake about it, the plans set forward by the Cato Institute to privatize Social Security are still intact, and Jonathan Paton's comment makes it clear that he will be on board the next time they try to privatize Social Security.
The only other thing I'd like to remind people of concerning the Ryan budget is that as bad as their plans are for Medicare and Social Security, Paton and other Republicans who have signed onto it are also supporting deep cuts in a wide range of programs that benefit virtually everyone, in order NOT to cut the deficit (as they have tried to say to sell it) but to finance deep tax cuts for billionaires. The tired old logic that low taxes on so-called 'job creators' will boost the economy should have pretty much been disproven by now, as taxes are already at historically low levels so if they really helped the economy we'd be seeing it boom right now. Instead, tax cuts only reduce tax revenue, which in turn creates deficits. Using deficits as an excuse to cut spending on programs, while at the same time pushing tax cuts for billionaires that will add back onto the deficit is pretty brazen, though I do have to admire their messaging people for convincing people not to think about the math (maybe there really IS another reason for all those cuts we've seen the GOP push in education the past few years.) But make no mistake about it. Paton is fully on board with the entire Ryan budget, including the 'cut spending to reduce the deficit and then cut taxes to blow the deficit up again' math.
There was one other answer I would like to dicuss that came from Mr. Paton, and one which left me cold. Someone asked him a question about treaties that we have entered into with other nations as well as the United Nations, and also about the second amendment. Paton first said that we should not observe 'any federal law that's unconstitutional.' Huh? I thought that it was up to the courts to decide whether a law is unconstitutional. And if they do make that determination, then the law is no longer in force. So what exactly does he mean by that? How will he determine which laws to obey and not to obey as 'unconstitutional,' since we already obey only laws which the courts have upheld or which have not been challenged. But it was the rest of his answer which really bothers me. He talked about people (presumably members of Senate, since the Senate ratifies treaties) who vote for treaties made with the U.N. and said, "we should not vote for it, and if you do vote for it, I think you’re a traitor, you’re a traitor to this country.”
Excuse me? If you vote for a law that he believes is unconstitutional, then you're a traitor? It's one thing to disagree with a law or what it says. It's quite another to accuse people who exercise their Constitutional duty to vote on whether to ratify a treaty, "traitors" if they do not vote the way he believes they should. Yeah, I know. Just what we need to fit in with the image of Arizona. Another member of Congress who goes to Washington and calls people who disagree with him, "traitors."
After going to the debate, I can only say that it is of critical importance that we NOT send Jonathan Paton to Congress!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

[Workers at Penn State remove the statue of former football coach Joe Paterno]

Joe Paterno had the highest of standards, and paradoxically at the same time the lowest of standards. Paterno, who coached the Nittany Lions as an assistant coach beginning in 1950 and became head coach in 1966 and coached until he was fired in late 2011, was undeniably 'old-school.' An Ivy League product (from Brown,) "Joe Pa" made very sure his athletes graduated and got the academic help they needed to remain in school. Nowadays this would be less remarkable since the NCAA has made academic success a part of what is needed for football players and other athletes to remain eligible, but he did so from the day he began coaching, when there was little or no concern about academics in college football. "Saint Joe" literally had a halo painted over his image in a mural on the Penn State campus. For that matter, when the NCAA caught up with where Paterno had been for years and began to focus on academics and other rules, Paterno's program was able to avoid a single NCAA infraction. The idea of using bribery or other illegal methods to induce players to play for him was unthinkable. Besides academic success, Paterno preached lifelong character, and his players as well as many others upheld him and his unassuming, humble nature as a model of character.

All of which made the Sandusky scandal all the more shocking. It would have been shocking at any university, but at Penn State it was a scandal of monolithic proportions. It would have been no more shocking if the Vatican itself had been caught covering up for pedophiles in the priesthood (wait a second, let me restate that.)

For Paterno to be guilty of covering up such an awful crime as child rape was unthinkable. Except that it's true, spelled out right there in the Freeh report.

In contemplating how this could happen, I keep coming back to Paterno's age (he was 85 when he was fired, and died not long after.) Now, don't get me wrong. I'm 49 and in a few weeks when I turn fifty, I do plan to join AARP. One reason why is that AARP has a long history of fighting against 'ageism,' the term for discrimination against older people in the workplace and elsewhere. But to get to the root of ageism, we need to examine both the myths and the realities of age, and discuss a concern that is at the heart of ageism but is not often discussed because to do so is sometimes difficult.

This concern is simply put, that older workers may be obsolete. I know, you’re thinking this is a post about obsolete job skills. NO, IT IS NOT!! We all know that as the workplace is modernized, all workers of any age must update their career skills to adjust to new technology, innovations and other changes that go along with any job. And Paterno did so. Penn State has over the past two decades (since Joe Pa became eligible for Social Security) been a college behemoth. In every aspect of the game Penn State was an elite football program, often appearing in the top ten in recent years and winning three Big Ten championships after joining the league in 1993, most recently in 2008. Obviously he was still up to running a top level football program.

But it’s a more sensitive job issue that ‘obsolete job skills’ is sometimes used as a code word for. It is obsolete cultural skills.

Let me say that again: obsolete cultural skills.

Some years ago I was on an interview committee for a teaching position. One of the candidates was an elderly gentleman who had some teaching experience, though it was decades old. During the interview, he referred to female students as ‘co-eds.’ This is a term that hasn’t been in wide use since at least the 1970’s, and this and other answers led the committee to question whether he might unintentionally say something that would offend someone. Language is one aspect of cultural skills. The terms we use to describe people or groups of people change. For example, when I was growing up in the 1960’s, I first learned the term, ‘negro’ as a word for black people. However, today the term would be considered so out of date that it would be close to racist, and should never be used.

Returning to Joe Pa, he may have done a good job of adjusting to a more pass-oriented, faster paced offense or to new NCAA rules on recruiting, but he did a poor job of adjusting to a new world. Consider the world he began coaching in, in 1950. Surely child sexual abuse happened, probably at least as often as it does now. But it was never talked about. If something was said about it, most people at the time would (wrongly) assume it was likely a single (or even several) instances of easily correctable misbehavior, and a talk with the offender would have been good enough (with little or no thought given to the victim.) Whether Joe Pa ever had such a talk with Sandusky we will probably never know. One of them is dead, and the other will spend the rest of his life in prison and what he says from now on probably has no credibility at all. But whether he did or not, we now know that child molesters are never ‘cured’ (certainly not by a quick chat or word of warning.) And the crime itself has come to be taken much more seriously. In the 1950’s, very rarely would anyone be prosecuted for the rape of a child, unless perhaps the parents of the victim pressed charges (though the victim would often be too ashamed to acknowledge this in the first place.) People like Jerry Sandusky could count on that, and then he took advantage of troubled kids, who often did not have parents who would stand up for them to begin with.

This is not in any way to excuse Paterno. It is instead to point out that for older workers (whether they remain at their jobs or start new ones) the culture around them is changing. If you want to work until you are 85, as Joe Pa did, that’s great. I commend it. BUT, you have to do more than learn to use the newest computer program or new way to fill out a form. You have to keep up with the world, and adjust your thinking. And when you do, you have to act on it.

I believe that unspoken concerns about cultural obsolescence are at least as big a factor in the decision to pass over older workers as concerns about obsolete job skills. And until we can have an honest discussion about these concerns, we won’t really be able to make the job path smoother for older workers, even those who have a mind as sharp as a tack and who have kept up with every new technological development that comes down the pike.

Monday, June 25, 2012

It's hard to recognize that much of what you were told growing up wasn't true.

I was raised in a good, Jewish home. So I went to Hebrew school on Saturdays and religious school on Sundays. I even remember going to a Zionist day camp in the summer. We learned a lot, of course about Israel. We were told about the roots of Zionism, and about 'Tzedakah,' those little blue boxes people had put money into to buy land in Israel (of course when I went to school the state of Israel had been establshed for twenty or thirty years, so the money went to plant trees, but we were told about how during the Depression era people had put their spare change in the boxes to buy land in Palestine.) They gave us the impression that most of the land had been a barren, sparsely populated desert until the Zionists came and planted it and made it bloom, and that the few people who had lived there prior to the settlement by Jewish settlers were mostly nomads. There was even a slogan that went along with that, "The land without people for the people without a land."

We were told lots of other things about the Arabs too, little of it good. We were told that they were mostly terrorists, or supporters of terrorists. We were shown a map of the middle east in which Israel was a small piece and there were over 20 countries where 'arabs' lived. The implication was that those arabs (all residing outside of Israel) who wanted to take it over were fanatics and greedy for every bit of land ('why not a small piece for the Jewish people?' was a rejoinder I heard when the map was rolled out.) We were told that Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza (at the time they were still considered occupied parts of Jordan or Egypt) were 'squatters' and that they could go to any of those countries, from Iraq all the way to Morocco. We were told that not only were there some arabs living peacefully in Israel, but that those who had left did so voluntarily, either because they wanted to go someplace where they could take up arms and fight against the peaceful Israelis, or because they 'believed the stories' others were telling them that if they stayed then later when the Zionists were defeated they would be executed as 'collaborators.'

Even until a few years ago, I was, if not a Zionist, much more ready to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. But what I've observed though, is the intransigence of the Israeli government, and it has convinced me that there is no way that one can reasonably support such a government or support a peace process that depends on the cooperation of such a government.

It was a useful fiction. But unfortunately, as I later learned, it was a fiction. Like most fiction, there are small pieces of it that may be true but are used to misrepresent the whole. Yes, there were boxes where people put spare change to buy land. But by 1948, the fund set up to purchase land, using money that had been sent from abroad, had only purchased 2 million of the approximately 26 million dunams of land in Palestine (a dunam is a unit of area equal to 1000 square meters, or about a quarter of an acre.)

They also did not buy the land that they did buy from nomads. In fact, they bought it from farmers and other landowners. Palestinian farmers. But those Palestinians who sold their land were only a small minority. Most Palestinians lived on land, or at least in a land that their ancestors had lived in for thousands of years and had no desire to sell it or to live anywhere else. The whole idea of a 'land without people' is false. In 1947, on the eve of the beginning of all out war and after decades of Jewish inmigration, the estimated population was 1,970,000 (see table on page 5) in which Palestinians (who are both Muslim and Christian) outnumbered Jews by 2-1. Keep in mind that this was nearly 2,000,000 people packed into an area the size of Vermont; had it been in the United States it would have been the most densely packed state (there is a reason why land was measured in quarter-acres.) The Palestinians had ancestors who had lived there since antiquity. They had their own culture, and were not merely 'arabs' any more than, for example, Hungarians are merely 'Europeans.' Imagine, for example, if the Hungarians were told that Hungary had now been assigned to the Chinese, but since the Hungarians were 'Europeans' they could all just move to Spain. Ridiculous? Yes. But no more so than reasoning that the Palestinians are 'arabs' so if they are forced to leave Palestine then they can move to Morocco. Another fiction, but one which betrays a bigoted and simplistic viewpoint on the part of those who brought us the map to look at.

The British attempted to divide up the land into two separate states, one for Israelis and the other for Palestinians. This was at the same time they were doing the same thing in India and Pakistan, and we know how poorly that worked. It worked no better in Palestine. Here is where the fiction really got hard to separate from the fact, but it must be separated. We all have heard the saying, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." This is true. The Israelis won the war, so we must also keep in mind another adage, "History is written by the winners." Certainly that is true in the Zionist school and summer camp. We were certainly told of every instance of Palestinians killing any Israeli (and during the 1970's there were frequent P.L.O. attacks, including at the Olympics, so it was very easy to tell this narrative,) but it was not until I was in high school that I learned that then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had been the leader of the Irgun, and the Irgun had committed many massacres and killings. Of course these were all explained away as 'necessary' massacres (not sure how a massacre can be 'necessary' but there it was told to us.) The Palestinians who fled were not fleeing because of some perceived threat of being shot as 'collaborators,' when some other arabs returned! They were fleeing because the Irgun and other armed Zionist groups killed many of them, and theatened to kill the rest if they remained. It is true that some arabs were allowed to remain behind. In some cases these people actually were the collaborators (!) but in other cases they were allowed because the new masters of the land (including new masters of the homes of those they forced to flee) needed a supply of low-wage, low skill laborers to do menial tasks. But the number of arabs who were allowed to stay was carefully limited to be far fewer than the Jewish population. The Palestinians who fled mostly went to refugee camps in southern Lebanon or other neighboring countries, or to camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas that had remained nominally under Palestinian control but were taken over by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.

There is a term for this process of driving an entire ethnic group or population out of their homes and forcing them to leave an area. It is 'ethnic cleansing.' But that term only came into vogue in the 1990's. It happened to the Palestinians much sooner than that. To argue that this was justified because there were also some arabs who killed Jews (which is also true) misses the point. Ethnic cleansing is always wrong, no matter who is doing it, and to whom.

It also explains why Americans are so much more willing than people in other countries to accept at face value the Israeli narrative on ethnic cleansing. We have it in our own history. The 'five civilized tribes,' the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole, had all signed treaties with the United States and adopted American cultural and governmental designs. However, when southern planters wanted their land, President Andrew Jackson and his successors chose to ignore the treaties and forcibly sign new ones, and removed them to Oklahoma along the 'Trail of Tears.' In other words, the tie between native people and their land meant nothing-- they could be arbitrarily 'assigned' to land a thousand miles away and then forced to abandon their homes and walk there. This model repeated itself throughout the history of American westward expansion; the Nez Perce were rudely driven out of the Wallowa Valley in Oregon despite a treaty they had signed with representatives of Thomas Jefferson years earlier promising them the valley in perpetuity, the Sioux who were promised the Black Hills (sacred to them) but were forced out when gold was discovered there, and locally, the Navajo and Hopi tribes (historically blood enemies) who were assigned land together at Bosque Redondo-- after both being forced to walk hundreds of miles to get there they almost killed each other off in a tribal war while American officers couldn't understand why the 'indians' were fighting each other. Luckily, things turned out better for the Navajo and Hopi than for the five civilized tribes, the Nez Perce or the Sioux; after the army decided that the land they had been driven away from was 'worthless' they were allowed to return home. But an understanding of American history helps explain why we have been so willing to accept that the Palestinian people can be removed from their land (ironically in the name of 'returning' the Jewish people to the same land.) We have removed nations of people that were smaller and weaker than we were to some arbitrarily selected piece of land, so at a visceral level we are less willing to call it a crime when others do it because then the finger can be pointed back at us. Well, it can. Deal with it. It was wrong in the 1800's and it was wrong in the 1900's and it's still wrong.

Several wars later, the world came to realize that this conflict if it continued was intractable, so for a while the answer was the so-called 'two state solution.' This idea reached its zenith in 1994 with the Oslo accords, signed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The basic idea was straightforward enough: that Israel would be recognized by the Palestinians on territory it controlled prior to the 1967 war and a Palestinian state would be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Like many others, I bought into it at the time, and in fact did so until fairly recently. In fact, the 'two state solution' is still the official position that the U.S. government and at least officially, both sides are operating under. The reason I said 'its zenith' occured in 1994 when the accords were signed, is that it has pretty much gone downhill since then. After signing the accord, Rabin was assassinated by a fanatical Israeli settler. Then in 2000, an accord was nearly reached between Arafat and Ehud Barak, a member of Rabin's Labor party who succeeded him as prime minister. However, the final agreement proved just too elusive and talks failed. Shortly thereafter things broke down completely and Israeli voters booted the Labor Party from power and have elected a succession of right wing governments who may claim to want peace but have shown no interest at all in peace talks. Only one of the right wing leaders even hinted that he might be interested in moving forward on the peace process, Ariel Sharon, but after he said he might do that, he had a stroke and remains in a vegetative state to this day. On the Palestinian side, after Arafat died the Palestinians elected a new leader, Mahmoud Abbas (and let's be clear here-- Arafat himself only had the support of the Palestinian people because he was the leader according to the west, and the west provided funds, much of which Arafat kept for himself; a Palestinian friend of mine once explained to me, "Arafat has the authority to say 'yes,' " or in other words as long as he was willing to condone whatever the people were doing anyway then they would call him a 'leader,' but the resistance fight had long since moved on past Arafat.) But Abbas has been unable to make any progress towards negotiations, and in fact suffered what could be considered the equivalent of a civil war when Hamas, a rival group that unlike the Palestinian Authority has never recognized Israel and continues to fight took control of the Gaza strip in 2007.

In order to unify the Palestinians, Abbas formed a government with Hamas, which also gives Israel a way to avoid serious negotiations. A big reason why there are no negotiations right now also has to do with Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. Unlike limited settlements like those in the Gaza strip (which settlements Israel abandoned and physically removed settlers from in 2005) in the West Bank, fully 10% of the population of Israeli Jews is now living there, not in the pre-1967 borders. This means that a right wing government can't negotiate peace because these settlers are a strong part of their base. In theory a Labor government could (since the settlers will certainly not vote for Labor anyway) but with more and more votes being cast by settlers the entire complexion of the government has shifted to the right so it is unlikely that Israel will elect another Labor government anytime soon, if ever again. At the same time, the complicated patchwork of Palestinian areas, legal settlements, illegal settlements (a crass distinction, because what is 'legal' is what Israeli law makes it, in fact according to international law the settlements are ALL 'illegal') and segregation walls makes it almost impossible to come to envision where one might put any kind of a border if the settlements remain, and as just discussed they are too big for Israel to likely be able to root out politically. In other words, Israeli intransigence is likely to remain because the tail has now taken over the dog. The settlers don't want any peace negotiations and they are now politically powerful enough that their opposition guarantees that there will in fact be no peace negotiations.

So where to now, then? Well, despite my upbringing and even my support for a two state solution until a couple of years ago (for an example of my evolution on the subject, consider that in a post I wrote seven years ago, I was still open to both a two-state solution and to bogus arguments about Israel needing extra land for 'security': Abraham Had Two Sons,) I believe it is time to suggest seriously a one-state solution. A single, secular state that allows everyone, Jews, Christians and Muslims equal rights, including equal religious rights. I know. Doesn't that put me in agreement with Hamas? It does, to a point. Hamas, of course is on record favoring the deportation of almost all Israeli Jews. I don't favor that. The overwhelming majority of Jews in Israel were born in Israel. So where would they go? Instead, what if the international community got behind a plan to create a single state, including everyone who lives there now. If someone lost a piece of property because it was seized from them, and they can prove legal ownership then give it back or compensate them (for example if an apartment house is now where there used to be a farm, it may not be possible to restore the farm, but then shouldn't the owners of the farm (or their descendants) if they were forced to flee, get compensation for the farm? Why not bring back the "Tzedakah boxes?" Bring them back, and let people put their spare change in them to compensate Palestinians for the land they had stolen. Yes, in a one state solution with guaranteed freedom of religion for everyone, we are going to have some major issues of trust (especially after decades of violence.) But wouldn't an effort abroad to compensate those who deserve it, be a worthwhile effort and a start towards building trust?

Saturday, June 23, 2012

The Supreme Court two years ago issued the Citizens United decision, allowing both corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums of money in U.S. elections.

To a degree this was a balanced decision because while corporate spending on elections is much higher than union spending, it is also true that corporations heavily support Republican candidates while unions heavily support Democratic candidates in terms of their political donations.

If it wasn't clear before (think stopping the Florida recount in 2000,) it is now: the Supreme Court is not an independent branch of government. Whether because the majority of the court is in fact made up of Republicans, and/or because several judges are now in their seventies and may be considering who will replace them, the high court has a cynical political agenda to elect Republican candidates. Let's be perfectly clear about that.

One of the most frequent claims made by the GOP is that they are better 'stewards' of taxpayer money. In other words, they have made the case that they are penurious and refuse to spend a dime that doesn't have to be spent, and make sure that if it is spent it goes the farthest.

Clearly, nobody wants to see their tax dollars wasted. That is true of Democrats as well as Republicans (and keep in mind that all those Democratic elected officials they claim are not keeping as close an eye on your money, are taxpayers too. It's also their money.) But let's take a closer look at a specific comparison, now that Maricopa county Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R) is planning to move into his new headquarters, which costs $92.5 million.

The building is 128,000 square feet in area. For those of you keeping track at home, that works out to $722 per square foot. Keep in mind that this is for an administration building, NOT a jail. Apparently among other things, the Sheriff is having bomb proof blast doors installed on the way leading to his office. Yeah, I know. After years of making inmates eat green lunch meat and sending his deputies on junkets to Hawaii to investigate the President's birth certificate* Arpaio claims he has a lot of 'enemies.' Never mind that there has never been a single actual attempt on his life. To hear Arpaio tell it, he is at the top of everyone's target list from Mexican cartels and al-Qaeda to federal agents who want to rub him out for being such a 'threat' to the President. Please! This guy makes Donald Trump look rational. To be sure, all sheriffs and law enforcement officers do make enemies (that comes with the job of enforcing the law against bad guys) but the rest of them all manage to do it without getting a martyr complex. Frankly if he's so paranoid about getting 'whacked' then maybe he should retire at the age of 80 instead of forcing the taxpayers to pay for bomb-proof blast doors on his office.

Now let's look at a contrast. Here in Navajo County, in 2009 the Sheriff's office needed another building for administration. Always keeping an eye on the taxpayers money, newly elected Democrat K.C. Clark bought the abandoned former Heilig-Meyers furniture store (about 8,000 square feet) for $50,000. He made the necessary renovations using prisoners on supervised work release from the county jail and moved in. The new building cost taxpayers here $6.25 per square foot, or less than 1% the rate that Arpaio's gilded new digs is costing in Maricopa county.

But wait a second. Isn't Maricopa County a much larger county? Of course it is. And of course the Sheriff needs a larger building to handle a larger staff. And he is getting one. So shouldn't this explain why it is so many times more expensive? Yes, and we just compared the cost per square foot, $722 per square foot for Sheriff Arpaio vs. $6.25 per square foot for Sheriff Clark. So per square foot, Sheriff Arpaio is spending 115 times as much (vs. 1,850 times as much if you just go with up front cost for the building.)

So what about per taxpayer? According to 2010 census data, the population of Navajo County was 107,449. The population of Maricopa County was 3,817,117. So dividing each of those numbers into the cost of the new Sheriff's headquarters, that works out to $24.23 per taxpayer for Sheriff Arpaio, and 46.5 cents per taxpayer for Sheriff Clark. That's about 52 times as much per taxpayer for Arpaio's building. And then you have to consider that a larger county means more staff, but not necessarily proportionately more because there will be at some level an economy of scale (for example, a sheriff in a small county may not need as many staff, but if the county is 35 times as large you still won't need three dozen times as many secretaries.) But this is the best case scenario for Arpaio, cost per taxpayer and he still can't get his use of taxpayer money on his new building to even be one fiftieth as efficient as Sheriff Clark's.

So next time someone tells you that, "Republican" is the same as "careful with taxpayer money," think again. They can say it, but that doesn't make it so.

* here's a thought on another topic-- every bit of evidence in Honolulu has long since been picked over, but birthers like Joe Arpaio's deputies still flock there. If the President had been born in North Dakota, do you think they'd be flocking to Bismarck year around in their intrepid pursuit of finding something that no other birther before has found yet? In fact, if the birthers are right, and the President was really born in Mombasa, Kenya wouldn't the real evidence be there? How come birthers like Sheriff Arpaio's deputies never go to a slum-ridden African city like Mombasa to look? You think that maybe it's because the surfing isn't as good?

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

A decade ago, when people would ask me whether I agreed with the Democrats on every issue, I'd answer that I generally did not. The exception was 'second amendment issues.'

As a rural Democrat (though I did grow up in the city) I understand that guns are pretty fundamental to the lifestyle around here. A rancher who is way back on his ranch dealing with a sick herd animal and is confronted by a pack of wild dogs may need it (yes, folks, those 'sweet little puppies' that people leave on the side of the road-- 99% of them get hit by cars, starve or die of thirst, or become coyote food, but the other 1%, they're out there-- and you don't want to meet them without a firearm.) But beyond that, a lot of people go hunting in rural areas, and even those who do not, generally know how to use a gun. And crime, while much less here than in cities is not entirely unknown in rural areas, but the difference is that if you call 911, the nearest officer may be miles away and whatever happens will be long over before they even get anywhere close to your home. For a lot of people here, guns are so fundamental that asking them to hand over their guns would almost be like asking them to hand over their kids.

And my own view has always been, "you should be able to buy any gun you want. And other than an instant background check to make sure you aren't a criminal or a loony, there is no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to buy a firearm.“ I've opposed registration of firearms as well, believing that it's not the government's business to know how many guns you own. And truth be told, that should be the liberal view. I believe you have the right to read, say, download, smoke or do whatever you want with a consulting adult in your own bedroom, so why not the right to buy what you want, including a gun?

For that reason, ten years ago I often differed with Democrats on gun issues, opposing gun control and registration laws.

I don't disagree with Democrats now, however. No, I have not changed my position, not changed it at all. What has happened is that the debate has shifted.

Although the rhetoric machine on the right likes to call Democrats 'gun grabbers' to keep their faithul in line, the truth is that no serious attempt to ban guns was proposed either by the President or Congress during the two years that President Obama had a Democratic Congress. It just wasn't on the radar screen. Even after the Tucson shooting, while there was a half-hearted attempt to ban the 30 bullet clips that Jared Loughner used to kill six people and injure 13 in a matter of seconds, (and some including me asked why anyone would want a rapid fire 30 bullet clip, unless you are a terrible shot and can't hit anything you aim at) there was no serious attempt to restrict the type of gun or ammunition people can buy.

What we see now (mainly at the state level, and Arizona is a prime example) is a much more aggressive agenda to push guns into places where they have never been allowed in the past, and that's where I am parting ways with the right. Some bills that have been passed by the Arizona legislature in the past few years and signed into law include:

*-- a law requiring that bar owners, unless they put up a sign stating otherwise, must allow guns into bars. Obviously armed drunks wasn't a good idea so virtually every bar in the state posted the sign, but it was an unncessary expense, and more importantly the legislature tried to tell the bar owners how to run their business.

It's not the people who know what they are doing who scare me, it's the armed nincompoops.

Even worse than what was signed into law, are some of the laws that have actually passed the Arizona legislature and made it all the way to the governor's desk the past few years. And history teaches that these bills don't die if you veto them, they will just come back in a modified form (such as the guns in bars bill, which was vetoed by Janet Napolitano but later signed by Jan Brewer.)

*-- the storage locker bill. Would have required that private businesses (any private business) allow people to carry a gun openly unless they invested a lot of money to install a secure storage locker where people could store their guns while in the business. So for example a convenience store would have to install such a locker or a person could walk right up to the clerk on the graveyard shift (when many convenience stores only have one person on duty) with a gun in their hand, and at the last moment could either present it butt-first to put into the storage locker or muzzle first ("this is a hold up.") Besides the obvious gift to armed robbers, this pretty much proves that the GOP legislature thinks business owners don't know what their customers want and therefore the legislature must tell them (and THEY are the ones who complain about the 'nanny state?')

*-- the guns in schools bill. Would force schools to allow any adult to carry a gun on campus. Again, a case of 'the legislature knows best,' not the local school board who knows what would work best in their community.

*-- the guns in university classrooms bill. Would force universities to allow anyone to carry a gun into classrooms. All I have to say about that is, I've had a lot more hotheads in classes I teach at a college than I've had school shooters. One time when I was teaching in Albuquerque a hothead got really ticked off in class, threw a pencil (hard) at another student's head (luckily she ducked and he missed) and then screamed obscenities at everyone and stormed off. I’m really glad he didn’t have a gun right then. For that matter, as long as we are talking about Jared Loughner (since the Tucson shooting came up earlier in this post) he was known to be a problem at Pima Community College. But fortunately the school had a gun-free policy which he followed on campus so when he had his periodic psychotic meltdowns on campus, he was unarmed at that moment. So in other words, we have become so obsessed with school shooters (which if we quit covering them and making a sensational story when there is one they probably wouldn't happen as often) that we forget the much more common case: of someone who may be in general a law abiding citizen, but who has a short fuse and a violent temper.

*-- the bill to allow guns into other public buildings, including town council meetings, municipal and civil courts and libraries. They could be banned only if the public entity involved installed expensive metal detectors at all the entrances (at this time of strained budgets, clearly something most such public institutions can't afford, and no, the legislature did not offer to provide funding in that case.) Just what we need, right? People bringing a gun to divorce court and custody hearings. Luckily even Jan Brewer realized this bill was bad news (kind of a sad commentary when you have to depend on Jan Brewer to be the adult in the room, but that's what kind of legislature we have now.)

So no, I haven't changed my position on guns at all. I still support responsible gun ownership. I still oppose gun control or gun registration. But the debate has shifted, and I do not support trying to force guns into places where they have never been part of the picture and don't belong in it.

Thursday, June 07, 2012

One of the benefits of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission is that it has produced a much higher number of competitive districts, both at the congressional and legislative level, than what we see in other states where one party has been able to produce a partisan gerrymander (such as Democrats in Illinois or Republicans in Pennsylvania.) The result is that there are a number of legislative districts, and three congressional districts, which are classified as 'competitive,' meaning that it is realistic to imagine a scenario that has either party winning.

I live in one such congressional district, Arizona CD-1. The district is somewhat different than the old CD-1, which was also a competitive district. It is also an open seat. In 2010 Paul Gosar rode the Republican wave (and a $2 million ad buy by a GOP Super-PAC) to an upset of incumbent Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick. However this year, Gosar, a Flagstaff resident who resides in CD-1, ran away from a rematch with Kirkpatrick and jumped into a district that is more friendly to Republicans.

The result is that Kirkpatrick is now in a very good position to be elected to the seat again. She has already raised over $1.1 million, including from small donors throughout the district. In fact, the Rothenburg Political Report and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball have rated the race as 'Lean D.' If that prediction holds then it would be one of the 25 seats that are presently occupied by Republicans and that Democrats need to retake to reclaim the House. Redistricting has also helped Democrats, adding the Hopi reservation and removing most of Yavapai county, a Republican stronghold, from the district. Some areas north of Tucson were added, and they do lean Republican but overall the district is still more Democratic. Even more than that, a poll on Tea Party 'favorability' in the district has shown a 17% decline since 2010.

Kirkpatrick does have a primary race against Wenona Benally Baldenegro, a progressive Democrat with a degree from Harvard. Past results however suggest that Kirkpatrick should be strongly favored in the race; in 2006, progressive candidates Susan Friedman and Mike Cacciopoli combined for 28% of the vote in a five way Democratic primary. In 2008, when Kirkpatrick was first elected, progressive candidate Howard Shanker worked the district very hard (in fact virtually everyplace I went that year I ran into either Howard Shanker or someone representing him) but then finished third with only 14% of the vote in the Democratic primary (second place went to Mary Kim Titla, who ran to the right of Kirkpatrick.) It could be a measure of how well progressives are getting their message out to see whether Benally Baldenegro exceeds Shanker's share of the vote in the primary. This is also a district where Hillary Clinton won handily over Barack Obama in the primaries in 2008, and while overall I may wish the district (and the Democrats living here) were more progressive, in fact by and large they are not.

On the Republican side, it appears that history may be repeating itself. For the first six years the district was in existence, it was represented by Rick Renzi, a Virginian who continued to live in that state while he was serving in Congress and only visited Arizona for campaign events. Renzi was a fixture on the non-partisan watchdog group CREW (Center for Responsiveness and Ethics in Washington)'s list of the 'dirty dozen' most corrupt members of congress. Renzi eventually declined to run again in 2008 after being indicted on multiple counts of bribery, extortion and money laundering. The case is now winding its way slowly through the courts.

With Renzi's history of 'representing' northern Arizona from the comfort of his Virginia home, and his ethical troubles reflecting so poorly on the district and on our collective judgment, you'd think the Republicans here would make a point of trying to find someone who actually lived in the old or the new CD-1 to run for 'representing' us and would look for someone without a past history of ethical problems. I mean, that's such a low standard that even Paul Gosar (the guy who abandoned the district because he was afraid of a rematch with Kirkpatrick) could clear that bar.

It seems though that they couldn't find a candidate who met either standard. Instead the leading candidate is Jonathan Paton, a paid lobbyist for the Payday Lending industry. Paton took thousands of dollars (not in campaign contributions either, but in the form of a check to him for 'services rendered' as a lobbyist) to represent this industry WHILE he was simultaneously serving in the legislature. This helped earn him the nickname, "Payday Paton." When asked directly about his roles with the discredited industry (remember that in 2008 voters rejected keeping Payday lenders in the state by a 2-1 margin) Paton tries to dodge the question. If he wants to represent Arizona in Congress, then he should answer forthrightly and candidly that question.

While serving in the legislature, Paton also was key to funnelling almost a quarter of a billion dollars in state money into a Tucson shopping project called Rio Nuevo. The project has turned out to be an expensive boondoggle and a waste of taxpayer money. It did help buy Paton something though-- he got a seat on the Board of Directors of the trust which oversees Rio Nuevo.

Similarly to what failed him in 2010, Paton is running a Republican Primary campaign centered on
extremism and pandering to the tea party. Paton's position in terms of the Ryan budget alone is enough reason to vote against him if you care about Medicare and don't want to see it privatized, as Ryan has proposed and which Paton has stated his support for both in 2010 and 2012. Paton lost in 2010 to Jesse Kelly in a GOP primary, in his bid to beat Congresswoman Giffords. But one thing Paton could say, is that he was from the district. He can't even say that this time.

Perhaps that's why he jumped into CD-1 in order to run. He's unknown to most of the voters here, because the voters who know him have already proven they don't support him. But the truth is, Paton has already shown he's a lousy candidate, raising only $197,000 in Q1, less than he raised in a corresponding period in his failed 2010 campaign.

Yes, history appears to be repeating itself with Jonathan Paton setting himself up as the next Rick Renzi. But we don't have to elect him. And fortunately it appears that the voters are not likely to do that.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

With the release Friday of May's terrible jobs report (and let's not sugar coat anything-- 69,000 created is terrible, and the unemployment rate notched up a tenth as a result) Mitt Romney and other Republicans have been quick to say that it is proof that President Obama's policies are not working. Their solution is to (predictably) suggest cutting taxes on 'jobcreators' (meaning the very wealthy and corporations,) getting rid of regulations and slashing government spending.

Not so fast. Certainly the policies in place are failing to stimulate the economy, but let's take a look at the policies in place.

Let's begin with taxes. Federal taxes are now at their lowest rates since 1950. It's hard to remember that during the 1950's and 1960's, the top marginal rate got as high as 91% in the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. And there were far fewer loopholes than there are today, so 91% meant 91%. Contrary to what today's conservatives will tell you, this did not deter job creation at all, as the American economy boomed (for example, Ray Kroc bought a hamburger stand from the McDonald Brothers in 1955, fully aware that if he was successful in his plans to turn it into a national chain of fast food restaurants he would be taxed at 91%. He and others prospered anyway.) Conservatives love to claim that the Reagan tax cuts were responsible for an economic recovery in the 1980's. But the top marginal rate under Reagan was cut in 1981 to 50%. That was what was considered 'conservative' in those days. What we have now is a system of historically low tax rates (on everybody) and then we have enough loopholes so that last year more than twenty thousand billionaires and multi-millionaires paid no tax at all as did many of the most profitable corporations. In other words, we have created a tax system in which tax rates are historically low, and what tax is paid, is paid mainly by the middle class, not the very wealthy. So the GOP argument that cutting taxes on the very wealthy will spur jobs is FALSE. Both the official and actual tax rates on the very wealthy and corporations are ALREADY the lowest they've been in decades and they have not stimulated the economy. Cutting them further will not help any more than the past several years of very low taxes have helped. In fact, if I fault Obama here, it's that he bought into the tax cut argument. Recall that the Stimulus was 43% tax cuts (including a mixture of corporate and individual tax cuts) and that he has further cut payroll taxes, and agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts two years ago. Let's be clear. Cutting taxes on so-called 'job creators' has NOT created jobs (certainly not in America.) Mostly, they've stashed the cash in accounts someplace (it is no coincidence that offshore banking in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands has exploded since the Bush tax cuts were passed.)

What about regulation? It's certainly true that there are regulations out there that can stifle small businesses. Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, after leaving the Senate, opened a Bed and Breakfast in South Dakota. He later said that he got overwhelmed by all the paperwork he had to deal with, and recognized most of it as stuff he had written, sponsored or voted for while in the Senate. As he notoriously told one interviewer, "If I realized what a pain in the neck it would be, I wouldn't have written half of that stuff." However, in getting rid of regulations or deciding not to write new ones, we want to be careful as well. Let's remember that it was the (bipartisan) vote in 1999 that repealed the Glass-Steagull act and opened the door to exactly the kind of wild speculation by the big banks in risky derivatives that led to the crash of 2008. Taxpayers are understandably irate at having to bail out these big banks after their own irresponsible behavior, especially since as long as the banks were making big money, it went to their own executives and investors, not to the taxpayers (historically low tax rates, remember?) Dodd-Frank is a start in the direction of regulating the banks, but even at that it was watered down by their lobbyists, ensuring that what happened in the early 2000's could potentially happen again. A part of the act which was removed in order to gain the vote of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and break a GOP filibuster, the so-called Volcker rule would prohibit banks from investing in hedge funds and private equity funds. This is exactly the kind of investing that got them into trouble in the first place. The CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, has argued against the Volcker rule and said that the rule could cost his bank $400 million, but then has said little since trading in a hedge fund cost his bank $2 billion, five times the amount he claims the Volcker rule would cost.

Certainly if a chain of interconnected large banks fail, it can destroy the economy for everyone. BUT EVEN WITH Dodd-Frank, and EVEN IF the Volcker rule is in effect, there would still be FAR LESS regulatory oversight than there was under Glass-Steagull. During the time that Glass-Steagull was in effect, between 1937 and 1999, recessions were far milder than they have been since then (even the 2001-2002 recession was much deeper than any other recent recessions before the current downturn.) So once again, conservatives have gotten their way with regulation of the banks. Suggesting more deregulation would be going in exactly the wrong direction.

What about other companies than banks? Certainly if most business fail whether because of lack of regulatory oversight or for some other reason they won't ruin the entire economy. No, but they can ruin a lot for a lot of people. For example, given the BP oil spill, does anyone suggest that we should relax regulations on offshore oil drilling (I'm not saying don't drill, but would 'deregulation' make sense here?) Regulations are generally written either to protect the safety of workers, to protect the environment or to protect the consumer. Which of these three should we protect less? Haven't we seen enough people die in mine disasters in the past few years? Don't we already have enough pollution? Do we want more unsafe products on the market?

Are there some regulations that could go because they are obsolete, unnecessary or needlessly burdensome? Of course. And we should remove unneeded regulation, but we should be sure it is unneeded first. If we don't the price will be paid in lives-- maybe even ours (Vioxx anyone?)

Well, what about cutting government spending as a means to stimulate the economy then? Unfortunately, as I explained last year, cutting spending in the middle of a recession has exactly the opposite effect. In fact, this is exactly what we SHOULD be learning from Europe. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland have all implemented various types of austerity to combat the recession, which involves massive cuts in their public sector workforces. The European Central Bank and the IMF have helped bail them out, but on the condition they cut their govenrment spending so that they could pay back the loans. Only an unexpected (but entirely foreseeable) development happened-- the economies of the countries collapsed so fast that even with the cuts they are having trouble making the payments because with a collapsing economy less is being produced at all and so less can be collected in taxes no matter how high the rate is. For example, the Greek economy has shrunk by over 20% just this year. What about the U.S. economy? With May's report, it is a fact that over 600,000 public sector jobs have been lost during the Obama administration. This includes over 11,000 federal jobs and much larger cuts at the state and local levels. This is precisely the OPPOSITE of what would be called for in classical Keynesian economic theory. One can argue whether this is itself caused by the bad economy (since states have to operate on a balanced budget) or by a conscious GOP attempt to shrink government (the truth is probably some of both, and there are enough public sector job losses to be explained using both of these causes.) However, contrary to what conservatives will tell you, if the economy has not been stimulated, it is not because of government hiring, but rather the dumping of hundreds of thousands of teachers, police and other public sector workers into the job market. So what we see is the effect of government not hiring, but in fact doing the opposite and sandbagging any private sector driven improvement in the economy by adding to the number of unemployed people (with lower income and consumer spending to match.)

So is the economy not doing very well? Absolutely, the May jobs report makes it clear that it is not. And certainly the interconnectedness of global markets means that we are fools if we believe that problems in Europe or Asia won't eventually be reflected in the U.S. But don't let conservatives suggest that they can 'cure' it by cutting taxes, deregulation and cutting government spending. Because that's what we've been doing for YEARS, and where we are now is where it has taken us! MORE tax cuts, deregulation and cuts to government spending would be like trying to cure high cholesterol by eating cheeseburgers.

Monday, May 21, 2012

The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer
“’Well, I’ve a mind to go with you,’ said Harry Bailey. ‘But I know that ride. It’s a long time to sit in a hard saddle. Let’s liven up the journey with a competition. Each of us can tell a story, and whoever tells the best will get a free dinner on the way back. The rest of us will foot the bill.’““The Canterbury Tales” is a collection of short stories told by a group of people on a pilgrimage in the 13th century. They kept each other entertained. These stories were recorded by one of the pilgrims, Geoffrey Chaucer. Each of the stories are different and all have their own morals. These stories can help us understand what the middle-ages were like.
In conclusion, I thought that “The Canterbury Tales” was a very good book. My favorite story was “A Barrel of Laughs”. I liked it because it was not a story that I would expect from the middle-ages. It was a very funny story and I enjoyed it a lot. I would recommend this book to all of my classmates.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Former Presidential candidate and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who has endorsed Mitt Romney for President, was brutally frank in his assessment of the GOP in an interview tonight with Jeff Greenfield.

Huntsman, whose campaign lived and died in the New Hampshire primary, started off by making it clear this would not be an ordinary interview by making it clear that he realized at the start of the campaign that he was in a field of political midgets:

"Recounting his first experience on the presidential debate stage in Iowa last August, Huntsman says he was struck by the question "Is this the best we could do?"

Huntsman went on to describe the way the GOP is run to 'communist China' and to claim (which I believe is right on the mark) that Ronald Reagan would not be able to win the GOP nomination in today's political climate. He stood by his not very enthusiastic endorsement of Mitt Romney but had a message for Mitt that he needs to find something to run on besides fear and articulate a positive message. The most amazing lines in this story are these:

"Huntsman jokingly blamed his failed candidacy in part on his wife, Mary Kaye, who told him she'd leave him if he abandoned his principles.

“She said if you pandered, if you sign any of those damn pledges, I’ll leave you,” Huntsman recounted.

"So I had to say I believe in science — and people on stage look at you quizzically as though you're was an oddball," Huntsman said, explaining why he was "toast" in Iowa."

Imagine that. If you're a Republican and admit you believe in science, then you are 'toast.'

Monday, April 02, 2012

According to recommendation in the Patterson report by a team of legal investigators hired by the House Ethics Committee (which Ted at his Rum, Romanism and Rebellion blog posted earlier today) the investigative team is recommending that Rep. Patterson be expelled from the legislature.

The investigation, prompted by a long, documented history of run ins with the police and violence against others on his part (and more specifically his latest physical assault on a woman as I wrote about a little over a month ago when it happened,) details misbehavior at the legislature itself, including verbal and physical threats of violence against other members of that body (of both parties,) offering to trade his vote on legislation for sexual favors and his repeated denials and outright lies, claiming that everyone else is conspiring against him.

The conclusion is very plain:

"Accordingly, based on our investigation, the results of which are more fully described below, we reluctantly recommend that, in light of his extraordinary and very predictable pattern of disorderly, indecorous, and deceptive behavior, coupled with the ineffectiveness of earlier counseling, reprimand, and discipline, Rep. Patterson should be expelled from the House."

Over the past couple of days, with the writing on the wall, Rep. Patterson's behavior has grown increasingly bizarre. First he resigned from the Democratic party (good riddance) and became an independent, railing against excessive partisanship and suggesting that he could bring the sides together. Well, he may be onto something. I suspect that maybe as early as tomorrow morning we will see an amazing show of bipartisanship and unity in the state House of Representatives as all of the other members vote to expel Daniel Patterson. For that matter, as critical as I've been of the GOP members of the legislature, I'm willing to give them another chance-- after all, it would be difficult to cooperate with the other side even if one was inclined to if one of their members was running around making personal threats against people who disagreed with him. So I'm willing to give it a few days and see if expelling Patterson clears some of the air at the legislature.

Then today, Rep. Patterson showed up in the legislature, and conspicuously sat directly behind Rep. Katie Hobbs, who formally brought the ethics complaint to the panel. As Patterson is known to carry a gun and has threatened other members of the legislature before with physical violence it was a tense situation and security was put on alert. Fortunately Katie (who has always been one of my favorite legislators, even before taking the lead on this) was surrounded by friends who made sure she was safe until she left the premises.

Honestly, I believe that Daniel Patterson needs some very serious mental therapy. However, as he is in denial that he even has an issue I only hope that he figures it out before he seriously injures or kills someone else.

In fact, I've been predicting for some time that the mandate (which candidate Obama conspicuously opposed and which was included in the health care law not because the administration wanted it, but because it was necessary to win the votes of insurance state Senators Joe Liebermann of Connecticut and Ben Nelson of Nebraska) would be thrown out, leaving the rest of the bill intact. That would include (especially) the state level exchanges where people who cannot now afford health insurance could choose from an array of government-subsidized private health insurance plans.

I believe that even without the mandate, most people who now can't afford insurance, will buy it when the exchanges are set up. This was the administration's goal anyway, and not forcing people to buy insurance is in keeping with the position that Barack Obama had when he was elected. Of course given that the bill was passed as a package it would have been politically impossible to not defend the whole thing, but if Verrilli 'mysteriously' improves over the next few days, it almost WILL suggest that he was trying to 'throw' this one without saying so openly.

Politically, removing the mandate but keeping the rest of the law intact (as several lower courts have done) represents a win for the President as well. The truth is, if you go point by point, most of the rest of the law, whether we are talking about the exchanges, ending the Medicare prescription drug 'doughnut hole,' ending pre-existing condition exclusions, ending 'recission' (the practice by which insurance companies arbitrarily canceled 20,000 policies per year after people got sick and began needing them,) allowing the parents of college age young people to include them on their plan, or an end to lifetime caps on coverage, has been very popular.

Remove the mandate, and the right loses their best argument for why people shouldn't like Obamacare. Trying to run a campaign on repealing Obamacare (i.e. bringing back recissions and caps and kicking people off of insurance) won't get them very far after that.

If Verrilli's arguments are much better put together tomorrow, then it may very well be that there was indeed a plan to 'throw' the argument on the mandate, and defend everything else. I'm not the only blogger who has considered that, either.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

He will repeat the behavior. That's not to say that a person with a history of violent attacks on domestic partners or others can't learn to not behave violently, but to do so requires that he first acknowlege that he has a problem with it and go through all the sometimes difficult steps to change the way he responds to people.

Some of us in the state party put together a series of resolutions (each time being blocked by various bureaucratic inefficiencies) targetting Patterson's violent behavior (and Republican Senator Scott Bundgaard, whose domestic violence episode was front page news.) Our first resolution was posted here along with a synopsis including rep. Patterson's denial on his blog when I asked him about it, which I soon determined was a lie.

One person did believe all his denials. Whether because he is a smooth talker, or because the truth would otherwise be too awful to face, his campaign manager/girlfriend, Georgette Escobar, always stood by Patterson and refused to believe the stories about how he treats the women in his life.

Until now, that is. Apparently Escobar got all the convincing she needed when Patterson went after her, beat her up and drove her out of the house. I actually do commend her for going public with it quickly. Rep. Patterson for his part is cowering in his home and refusing to let anyone on the property to serve him with a restraining order from Escobar (he's known to be armed, so when he refuses to let anyone on the property it's a threat best taken seriously.) This is also in character for him. On one previous occason when police were investigating a violent episode he had with Schaffer he took off, called his home and when a police officer answered he refused to return until after the officers had left. Safe to say that Dan Patterson knows how to do two things well: he knows how to beat up women and he knows how to run away and hide afterward.

He can't hide out forever though, the legislature is in session and he will be expected on the floor.

And I for one hope that the rest of the Democrats in the legislature call for an ethics inquiry, instead of waiting for the Republicans to do it (and if the Republicans do then I will say a laudatory word about them-- at least they had the backbone to confront Mr. Bundgaard and eventually get him out of the legislature.)

Rep. Patterson needs to resign. And if he doesn't then his colleagues should form a bipartisan coalition against him.

As a Democrat, I would like to invite Rep. Patterson to leave the Democratic party. We are a party that is on record as condemning domestic abuse, especially by members of the legislature (we finally got that voted on in Yuma in November.) And unlike someone who (still inexcusably) loses their temper one time, rep. Patterson has done this again, and again, and again. The only safe place for him is a jail cell, but as long as he is out of one he should also be out of the Democratic party.

UPDATE: The state party is coming around on this. State chairman Luis Heredia and House Minority Leader Chad Campbell have both called on Patterson to resign (though being careful to word it in a way that suggests their primary reason is that these allegations are a distraction) and rep. Katie Hobbs has submitted a petition signed by fifteen house Democrats (out of seventeen who could have signed it, given that there is one Democratic vacancy and the other seat is held by Patterson) to ethics committee chair Rep. Ted Voigt asking the house ethics committee to open an investigation into rep. Patterson. Rep. Voigt has taken the preliminary steps to do so.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

It seems as though Republican critics of the Obama administration in particular are ecstatic, even gleeful at the recent rise in gasoline prices.

Leaving aside their parochial reasons for this, it's worth rebutting some of the spurious claims that are being made in this regard.

First, there is the claim that the administration contributed to this increase by placing a moratorium on deep water drilling after the BP disaster and canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. Second (and this relates to it) is the ongoing narrative that the U.S. doesn't have enough refining capacity and therefore our supplies of gasoline (and other refined products like heating oil and jet fuel) are limited.

Let's begin with the first claim, that administration actions taken to protect the environment are the cause of the present price spike. There are two basic flaws here: 1) they do not acknowlege the reasons for these actions, and 2) these charges are not true at all.

The reasons why the administration made these decisions are quite plain.

If you go back to after the BP disaster in early 2010, businesses all along the Gulf Coast suffered as beaches were closed, tourists stayed away and the fishing industry suffered severe and lasting damage. More than that, however, the inept and bumbling attempts by BP and its contractors to cap the spill in deep water made it plain that the supposedly fail-safe systems failed, and they had no idea what they would actually do if the system did fail. In this context it was only prudent for the administration to put a six month moratorium on deepwater drilling until the reasons for the leak could be determined and methods to contain and cap such a spill developed. Imagine if they had not placed a moratorium and then another well, somewhere else in the gulf had blown out and created twice the disaster. The President is sworn to protect the United States of America and in the face of demonstrated incompetence by the drilling rig's operators he was right to follow the mantra, 'first do no harm.'

In the case of the pipeline, the project was under study and on a schedule to be decided early next year. Because it crosses an aquifer that supplies drinking water to Nebraska, and because of a rupture in a similar pipeline that spilled crude oil into the Yellowstone river in Montana last year, there was a good reason to proceed with caution. Congress however intervened and forced the President to make a decision within sixty days. Again, the President followed the advice, 'do no harm' and said 'no' to the pipeline.

What of the economic impacts? Virtually none. In the case of crude oil production in the gulf, it was down slightly during the six month moratorium (which only affected deepwater rigs, a fraction of the total) but has since recovered. As we can see from the linked chart, crude oil production was affected far more by Hurricane Ike in September 2008 than any of the minor effects of the moratorium. As to the Keystone pipeline, even if approved it would not be built for years or be operating at full capacity until at least a decade from now, so it's a stretch to tie it to anything relating to present gasoline prices. Further, the administration has almost certainly done far more to reduce demand for gasoline over coming decades by increasing fuel efficiency standards for new automobiles than the drop in the bucket that the Keystone pipeline would increase supply, whether it is eventually built (along a less environmentally sensitive route) or not.

OK, what of limited U.S. refining capacity, also said to be responsible for an increase in gasoline prices? Again, that is false. In fact, last year the United States became a net exporter of refined products. Maybe what we need to do is implement a tax on exports so gasoline produced in American refineries would be cheaper to sell in the United States than abroad.

There are both long and short term reasons for the run up in oil prices. Long term, it is simply a fact that there are billions of people in developing countries (especially China and India) who are now beginning to earn enough money to be able to afford motor vehicles and use fuel. So globally the demand for oil is, and will continue to, increase. The price will also continue to rise with it. The only realistic solution for the U.S. is to get entirely off of that treadmill by moving towards electric vehicles and other alternative sources of fuel. Short term, the increasing tension around the strait of Hormuz certainly plays a part. The west (including the U.S.) has been increasing the pressure on Iran even to the point of risking a war in the strait over the Iranian nuclear program. These sorts of foreign policy complications are inevitable given that much of the world's oil supply comes from a small area along the far end of the Persan Gulf. To assume that the diplomatic temperature around the Persian Gulf does not affect the price of oil is foolish. It does, and right now it is causing us to pay more. However, the President is to blame for this only in terms of the fact that he is not backing off from his stated position with the Iranians. So at least let's get the facts right on that.

Monday, February 06, 2012

Republican Clint Eastwood is catching all kinds of grief for making a commercial for Chrysler saying that "It's time for the second half in America." Of course this aired during the Super Bowl, so the slogan was logical.

But beyond that, it clearly tags with Chrysler's comeback. They are trying to sell cars, and their comeback story is a big part of their sales campaign.

I don't see what the big deal is about it, but some Republicans are upset about the commercial, claiming that it is really about President Obama's re-election campaign and alludes to a second term. That of course is hogwash; the commercial is about selling cars.

This kind of paranoid overreaction does however say a lot about the psyche of a lot of the Republicans who are blasting it. They know that President Obama took a big risk and bailed out Chrysler and General Motors. It has in fact been a smashing success. Unemployment in the city of Detroit has shot down from over 16% when he bailed out the two auto companies to about 9% today. The city is making a comeback, and the resurgent auto industry is the main reason why. Republicans, including Mitt Romney, criticized the President for the bailout at the time. So now that Detroit is back they can't avoid seeing the credit going to the President. Maybe they'd prefer that Chrysler and General Motors not show off their successes until after the election?

They also know that this has been a good week for the president. Following the January jobs report in which almost a quarter of a million net jobs were created, new polls by ABC News and Rasmussen both have Pesident Obama jumping out to a statistically significant lead against Mitt Romney.

Having gambled on the economy failing, and doing everyting they could to obstruct and not cooperate with the President and make it clear they were being uncooperative, the GOP is now on the verge of getting caught in a political no man's land.

So the truth is that Karl Rove, Mark Steyn and some of the other Republicans who have jumped all over Clint Eastwood about this, are spooked. If they hear in the phrase, "second half in America" an echo of Reagan's "morning in America," maybe it's less that the message was overtly political as it is that they know they are on the wrong side of an improving economy, and their negativism won't last until November.